


How The West Was Won

by seularen



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1580525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seularen/pseuds/seularen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first person to call him Richie is his brother.</p><p>(The Gecko Brothers: beginning, middle, end.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How The West Was Won

1\. The first person to call him Richie is his brother. It starts when they’re playing together in the backyard, climbing the tree growing right outside the kitchen window.

“Hey, Richie,” Seth calls from a higher branch, “Eat the leaves.”

“Okay,” Richard— _Richie_ —agrees, and plucks one, nibbling on the end. “Kinda like salad,” he reports back.

“Huh,” Seth muses. “Gross.” A beat, then: “Let’s go get ice cream!”

The next day, Richard goes to school and tells his teacher he wants to be called Richie now. The long-suffering kindergarten teacher replaces his labels and Richie begins the laborious process of learning to write his name with a different ending. It’s worth it, to sign the drawings he makes for Seth.

One in particular he draws of the tree outside their house. He signs the bottom: R i c h i e.

He knows his brother is going to love it.

 

 

2\. Richie is eight when he learns the value of charm. The concept of saying something that wasn't the absolute truth had always seemed strange and dishonest. Charm was saying things you didn’t believe, and he believed strongly. He wasn’t about to be convinced otherwise. Why Seth was so nice to people he didn’t care about confused Richie.

Now he understands: being nice when you didn’t want to—that was what you did when you wanted something, but weren’t certain you’d get it.

He’d never wanted many things before. Not like this, anyway. This is a gnawing; it’s all he can think about. When he takes notes in class, every penstroke tilts, guiding him away from the subject into the margins of the page where he scribbles certain words and phrases:

_bruise bruise bruise_

_runny bloody nose_

_running down_

_running away_

_getting away with murder._

He throws away the page after class, crumpling it up and pretending to tie his shoe at the door as he shoves it underneath some other trash in the tiny bin.

He’s never wanted like this. What he _wants_ is to be able to fix the hurt their father leaves on Seth’s body.

So he practices smiling in the mirror until it looks enough like Seth’s, and uses his new weapon on the school librarian. He needs books they don’t have. He needs them _now._ It helps that the librarian already knows him. He’s always been a reader. He visits the library often, scanning the shelves for anything that catches his eye. Some fantasy, some science fiction, but he burns through biographies. Great men—men of history. He’s going to be one of these men someday. They’re going to write books about him. Him and his brother: the Gecko brothers. They’ll have their own series; they won’t be able to write all their adventures into one book.

But that’ll only happen if Seth survives. So survival becomes Richie’s new goal.

With his new smile plastered on his face, he asks the librarian for army manuals. My cousin is joining the army. I want to write about basic training. Do you have any books on first aid? Maybe I’ll make my presentation about first aid. Oh, there are books in the library about that? That’s… Those are fine. But, I’d really like to make this presentation good. I’d like to learn about the specifics. Another cousin is getting certified in first aid. Do you have anything about that?

Less than a week later, Richie has what he needs. He methodically reads each text, using dimes he steals from his father (a small fee for hitting his brother—the first he'll be collecting) to copy the pages that help him know what to do. He makes his own book, lots of pages on facial injuries. Pages on addressing major medical issues while stranded in hostile environments. How to stop bleeding. How to make sure a wound is clean—he hadn’t known that was an issue, before.

It isn’t long before he has to put his newfound knowledge into action. He’d half-wondered whether it’d been worth it, all that charm and effort. Now he knows it was, because he’d gotten what he needed. He’s prepared, when Seth comes into their room with a bloody nose and bruises all over. Richie stands right away, taking over, moving with purpose that suits him. Seth wants to complain, but they have to keep quiet, so no one comments as Richie guides Seth to sit down on the edge of the bed; Seth still manages to communicate his unhappy restlessness in fidgets and glares. Richard ignores him, focusing on running his fingers over Seth’s delicate bones to check for breaks. There are a lot of tiny bones in the face, he’s learned. (He carries a list of the bones of the face now, which he stares at in class. Better than memorizing spelling, anyway, way more useful.) Feeling nothing out of place, he draws back.

“Nothing broken.”

“I coulda told you that, weirdo,” Seth laughs. He always laughs after, like he’s relieved and giddy. He grins, too, big and fake. “How’d you know all that, anyway?”

Richie’s lips twitch. He knows Seth will like this story. He’s been saving it, to cheer Seth up. It happens more and more, these days: needing to cheer Seth up.

“Well,” Richie says, sitting down on the bed next to his brother, “You know Mrs. Goetz, the librarian?”

  
  


3\. Thanks to his father, Seth knows a wide variety of swear words. More than anyone else in his grade, even ones with older siblings. Seth, already sharp edges and smooth lies, spreads it around that he’ll teach them to classmates—in exchange for favors.

It’s never anything big. Nothing that would get anyone in trouble. But it’s damn useful, and he’s had a steady crowd ever since third grade. He’s in fifth grade now, but it’s the same building for K-5, and he makes it very easy for kids to find him. It keeps him and Richie with a steady stream of snacks, which is becoming pretty important, since the school lunch is their one main meal of the day. What they get at home—if they get anything at home—is luck of the draw. And their luck’s never very good.

So Seth works the trade as much as he can. Gets them fruit snacks and chocolate milk and fun-sized bags of Doritos (only Cool Ranch, Richie hates the Nacho Cheese flavor, because he's a freak). He drops the extra food into Richie’s lap during lunch or gives it to him on the bus after school, and Richie’s never asked, so Seth never tells. He doesn’t think Richie knows anything about it. He’s rather keep it that way; for some reason, he’s kind of embarrassed.

Then one day Seth’s on the playground during recess and Richie’s grade is running the mile. Richie runs _fast_ , gets done in time to walk it off on the playground. He beelines for the tire-swing, Seth’s known stomping ground, where all the cool kids hang out. Sure enough, Seth’s busy as he lingers by the line to get on the swing, making deals as always. Today Richie hears him promising Betsy he’ll teach her some swears as long as she gives him a week’s worth of whatever dessert her mom puts in her lunch.

Richie listens to the transaction, the first he’s ever heard. He’s shaking his head by the end of it, and when Betsy moves to clamber onto the tire-swing, he walks up behind Seth and clears his throat.

“Hey.” 

“What—” Seth startles; Richie'd appeared like an apparition. 

“Running the mile,” Richie explains.

“How’d you do?”

“Top three,” Richie grins. Seth punches him in the shoulder.

“Hey, good job.”

“Sure, I guess.” Richie pretends like the praise doesn’t make him feel like he’s floating. “Anyway. I heard all that.”

“Oh,” Seth immediately sticks his hands in his pockets, about to lie to Richie’s face, “I—”

“You’d get more out of this if you did one-for-one,” Richie says, cutting off whatever shit Seth was about to say. And before his brother can respond, he leans in and explains quietly, urgently: “Betsy would’ve given you whatever you asked. So only give her one at a time. Only ask for more, each time.” Richie looks over, where Betsy’s long hair whips past them as she swings around on the tire with her friends. “And don’t let her get on the swing ‘til she agrees.”

He looks back to his brother. Seth is staring at him, a look torn between dumbfounded and converted. They don’t have to say anything else. It just works like that, from then on.

They don’t count it as their first job. It doesn’t even make their list of collaborations. But it sets the tone: Richie plans, Seth executes. The Gecko brothers ride.

  
  


4\. _(richie spent a lot of time as a kid figuring out how to keep this guy offa me. and he was real good at it. til one day he didn’t have to anymore. old man fell asleep on the couch with a friggin’ lit cigarette in his hand. fire burned down the whole house, you know. i was asleep in my room, smoke got to me, i was out. richie came in, he pulled me out, okay.)_

 

There’s the story Seth tells people. There’s the story he tells himself. And then there’s what actually happened.

As they’re watching the house burn, Richie’s hand finds Seth’s jaw and turns it towards him. He’d never done that before. Seth lets his gaze be guided and looks up at his brother.

“We never talk about this, Seth.” Richie’s eyes reflect the fire raging behind them; he can look into his brother’s eyes and see it all. “Never. You understand?”

Seth nods, pushing his cheek into Richie’s hand.

He closes his eyes.

  
  


5\. The summer’s been dry, and everything’s thirsty. It takes hours after sundown for the temperature to cool, long past curfew, but when’s a thing like curfew stopped the Gecko brothers? They borrow a blanket from the back of Uncle Eddie’s couch and sneak out to lay on a hill made of patchy greens and browns. Ants and mosquitos are staging an all-sides attack; Seth can feel them crawl and land on his legs, tickling his hair. But he’s too content to sit up and swat them away. It’s the kind of night that shouldn’t be disturbed with too much motion.

Richie’s next to him, right arm parallel to Seth’s left. They’re close—they always stay close in the dark.

“What about that one?”

“Auriga.” Richie closes one eye and points a finger up, tracing. “He’s supposedly carrying a goat in his arm.”

“What a freak.”

“He was Roman. You have no idea.”

“Huh.” Seth isn’t really listening. The sky’s expansive above them, the Kansas prairie echoing with chirps. They’ve been coming out here almost every night this summer. It’s gotten so that Richie just shows up, silent in the doorway, blanket in hand—and Seth always has his shoes on. “Betcha can’t name all the constellations,” he muses, still staring up.

“No, Seth,” Richie’s overly patient voice, “I can’t name all the constellations. I’m not an astronomer.”

“No shit. Don’t, by the way, you don’t need another subject to never shut up about. I mean: I bet you can’t name the constellations I point at.”

“That could be any of them.”

“I’ll only give you ones I know.”

Richie snorts. “You don’t know any constellations.”

“Sure I do.”

“You barely know arithmetic.”

“Oh yeah? Who forged those cafeteria logs flawlessly?”

“That’s penmanship, moron, not math.”

“It _involved_ math.”

“Whatever.” Richie’s foot rolls, knocks against Seth’s. “What’re we betting?”

“Chores for a month,” Seth says and turns his head just to watch Richie’s face scrunch up in disbelief.

“What kind of bet is that? You never do them.”

“So,” he raises an eyebrow, “Don’t you want to make me?”

In the silence following that question, Seth counts his heart beat twelve times. He knows a lot of things, and pretends to know a lot more, but he’s never really had a grasp on his brother. He has no idea what the kid’s gonna say. There’s a shortlist of things he’d like to hear, but...

“So,” Richie echoes, and turns his head, finally, cheek against the blanket. Seth can feel his breath when he speaks; they’re nearly whispering, heads bent close. “You’re _so_ sure I can’t.” It’s not a challenge. His voice is flat, hiding all its roughness. It’s a promise, resting heady and humid between them, iron-rich and ripe. Seth can feel exactly how far Richie’s lips are from his; the distance between them is the only definition that matters.

Richie tried to teach him chess once. Seth didn’t like the pace of it, but he’d humored him as long as he could hold out. His brother is the kind who read books about the best chess games ever played, and for a while he’d requisitioned Uncle Eddie’s card table with a secondhand chess board he’d gotten (stolen, probably) from god knew where. Seth had watched him one stormy afternoon. Book in one hand, Richie would sit on one side, move a piece, get up to go sit on the other side, look at the book a while, move the other color piece, get up... it was hilarious, and _definitely_ the nerdiest thing he’d ever seen Richie do, and he still smirks a little too wide thinking about it.

Richie knows all kinds of moves, is the point. And Seth only knows one: move your shit forward, and hope for the best.

He grins.

“Oh, I _know_ you can’t.” _Come on, Richie, you stupid bastard. I can't do this myself. You gotta break first._

Richie grins back. His teeth gleam, a pointed slash of moonlight white in the dark.

 

 

6\. They just pulled off their fifteenth job.

“We just—”

“I know,” Richie says, trying to cut him off because they’re still outside, but Seth won’t be stopped.

“We just completed our _fifteenth fucking job_ , Richard.” He paws for the key to their rented apartment. They’re still carrying their bounty; they’re not home-free, but they’re about ten feet away, so maybe they can relax a little. He finds the key and unlocks the door, pushing it in and abandoning the key in the lock. He has other things on his mind than keys. He turns and pulls Richie by the collar, forcing his head down into a messy kiss. Seth’s lit like New Year’s, and the kiss is full of livewire energy, running through them both. Richie pushes and crowds him until they’re both inside the door, breaking free for a moment to close and lock the door behind them. When he turns back around, his smile is condescendingly smug. All bullshit: he’s just as wired with adrenaline and success, enchanted with their sheer bravado. Because they _did_ it.

“You’re absurd,” Richie drawls, walking forward towards Seth.  

“You love it.” Seth raises his chin, taking steps back towards the couch, drawing Richie to him, and Richie follows, head bent, shoulders leading, fucking _stalking_ him through the room, moving in sleek lines. His brother’s a work of fucking art. He’d steal Richie from the walls of the Louvre, except he’s lucky: the bastard’s right here, ready for the taking.

The back of Seth’s knees hit the couch. He’s made it. They’ve made it, they’re safe. He reaches out for Richie, tired of the chase, only to find Richie already there, pressing against him. Richie’s hand finds the back of Seth’s neck and Seth’s nails scrape Richie’s skull. They keep each other steady as their lips meet with violent energy. It’s a fight—it’s always been a fight.

And neither of them pull any punches.

  
  


7\. The first year Seth’s in jail, Richard nearly drives himself out of his mind trying to find ways to break him out.

He sleeps and eats efficiently, keeps himself clean—he doesn’t completely dissolve. He keeps a military regimen. It helps him focus. Besides, he’d promised Seth he’d take care of himself.

But he didn’t promise what he’d devote his time to. He goes back to the cartel they’d done most of their jobs with, but without Seth, it’s impossible to get people to listen to his ideas. He tries their contacts in KC, but they’d always been morons, that’s why they’d outgrown them in the first place. Besides, no one’s interested in breaking a lone man out of prison. They don’t want to hear Richie’s ideas.

He burns his bridges the same way he pulls off a job: methodically, leaving no trace.

A year later, he’s still convinced he’ll find a way to free his brother. He’s rented land (a cabin and surrounding woods) for a few months to plan the job. He’s certain he’ll be able to pull it off—he just has to figure out what _it_ is.

He goes to Reno on a lead, and ends up in a knife-throwing contest. There’s a man there, an arrogant Mexican, who bets his knife and blusters when he loses. When Richie picks up the Mexican’s knife, he feels better than he has in months. He’ll see his brother again. He’ll pull off the job. And he’ll do it with this new lucky knife in his pocket.

 

 

8\. Seth’s still wearing prison clothes. Richie’s in the suit he wore to convince people he was a lawyer. They’re driving a goddamn Honda.

But they can’t stop grinning. Richie can’t stop looking over at him, and Seth—Seth has to sit on his hands. They crank the radio, scanning stations and stopping on every oldies station they find, “Black Magic Woman” and “Spirit In the Sky” and “Satisfaction” keeping them company until they finally make it to the next state.

They pull into a rest stop with a restaurant and Richie in his crinkled suit orders two slices of pie and an order of fries to go, while outside Seth breaks into the nearest car he doesn’t hate (a Chevy—he likes the classics). Richie watches the news, head tilted up towards the tv with a bland expression that scares the waitress into hurrying up their order. _Works every time_ , he thinks as he pays. When he walks outside, headlights flash at him. He slides into the passenger seat of the Chevy.

“Really?” He asks as they peel out.

“Five years in prison, brother.”

“That excuse isn’t gonna last forever.”

“But it works now, right?”

 _I missed you_ , is on the tip of Richie’s tongue, unbidden sentiment bubbling up over something as simple as Seth’s tone. It’s ridiculous, to have missed someone’s arrogance. To miss the particular way Seth raises his eyebrows when he knows he’ll get away with it. To have wanted to hear the way he intoned statements as questions, when he knew what the answer would be. To know all these details, and look for them in every person he met in the last five years, and never finding anyone who could capture it all. He’d looked for Seth in everyone. He'd tried to find him even when he knew he couldn't. Now he has his brother back, he’s looking for Seth in the real article—and surprised to find him. Surprised the things he missed most are still intact. Five years...

He swallows the words and digs around for the container of fries instead.

“Pull over. We should eat before it gets cold.”

 


End file.
